Something about everything with pictures.

Nature

05/31/2014

I've been enjoying my friend Grace's blog Windthread. She lives in rural New Mexico and is completely involved with the place she lives in. It's so much fun to see all the plants and rocks and colors in detail, and hear about the wind and the rain and heat. I envy her life in a place where there's so much nature, wild and free.

Here in the city nature comes in bits and patches. We have some wild animals, but nature here contains lots and lots of humans, domesticated pets, domesticated plants in people's yards, and pavement along with the dirt. I read what Grace says about permaculture and get so excited and interested. How can I do this here? Then I look at the tiny yard, and think about our lack of rain and water and the neighbors, and don't know where to take it or if I can do it at all.

There are a lot pleasures here this time of year. We were going out to eat last night and saw this fireman riding high and happy on top of the truck. It was a beautiful evening and he was obviously enjoying it. Surely firemen are part of nature.

The jacarandas are blooming now, making purple clouds here and there. They smell fantastic and leave a carpet of purple on the ground. Owners complain about the clean up, but if I had a tree like that I'd leave it. It's part of the happiness of the season.

The weather has been perfect early summer in L.A. Warm, but not too hot yet. Everything is burgeoning everywhere. All the plant growth hits a fever pitch this time of year, and things grow so quickly they almost hum with the energy in them. The birds are busy and loud, the crows are extra sarcastic. The cats stay out all night carousing. It's one of the best times of year.

03/11/2014

It's spring already and the birds are nesting everywhere. There's a very aggressive mocking bird in the neighborhood that has it in for our cats. There's also the neighbor's cat Floyd, who hangs out on our back steps with his nose to the crack under the door singing love songs to my lady cats, who hate him. The cats want to go out and enjoy the afternoon when I come home, but they're driven back in the house almost immediately by the birds and the neighbor cat. He sits on the back steps staring and singing, so they go out the front door. The birds are waiting for them outside and dive bomb them.

I thought I'd go out and enjoy the day too, and maybe play bodyguard. I'm writing this on the patio with two mockingbirds squawking threats at Floyd, who's hiding under a chair. He isn't stupid, just clueless about women. Lelu ran onto the patio to escape the birds. But then she saw Floyd, hiss hiss.

Then when the wind changes direction it brings us the fragrance of the seven puppies who live in back of us. There should be some industrial use for their effluvia. You could light your home with it but you'd have to sit out in the dark because the smell is so intense. The neighbors clean up after them, but there's only so much you can do with that many little dogs.

The birds have gone off to rob some liquor stores, and now Floyd is rubbing his face on my foot, which is scandalizing Lelu. I'm cheating on her with her enemy. This won't keep her from demanding food when we go back inside.

Here's poor innocent victim Lelu resting in between bird attacks. You can almost see Floyd's little black head sticking up towards the upper right. He's on the porch waiting for love, or food or something.

Nature is brutal, but it doesn't leave time for philosophy. I have to go break up another cat fight.

01/09/2014

We had dew this morning which means there was humidity over night. I don't know if there was enough to drip off the plants and water anything, but maybe our skin will feel better for a little while. Living with 11% or less humidity for weeks takes it out of you. I was joking with Tom that we'll have to hold really still and wait for water to condense on our bodies like those insects in the Atacama Desert in Chile. I saw them on a nature show. They sit on the sand dunes and when fog comes in it condenses on their bodies and they can get water to drink. Pretty funny to think of doing it here, and pretty hopeless since this winter has been so dry that having dew is an event. We talked about ways that we used to re purpose gray water and hope it doesn't come to that.

Here's a link to an article about the Atacama Desert. They average 1/2 inch of rain a year. We'll be catching up soon if things don't improve. Atacama Desert Wikipedia

11/22/2013

We had our first winter storm yesterday. It was nice, we need rain desperately. The seagulls flew in from the beach earlier this month. They move inland sometime in November. Maybe they don't want to be blasted off the beach in bad weather. Or maybe their food supply dries up in the fall when there are fewer people at the beach turning their backs on their tuna sandwiches. They congregate in flat open places with a food source, like school yards or fast food parking lots. I used to watch them when we lived across the street from the Jr High. They would move across the grass in drifts, as if they were floating on the ocean. Then something would startle them and they'd take flight all at once. They're beautiful fliers. I went out one Thanksgiving morning to feed them stale bread. It was like being inside a snow globe, and the seagulls were the snow. I always associate them with Thanksgiving now.

Our ash tree has started dropping leaves. It's another traditional Thanksgiving thing since we've lived here, the month of endless leaf raking. This is just the beginning.

09/15/2013

This came about as a lucky accident. I had a 5" square bit of this nice grayish water color fabric. I had an odd shaped piece I'd cut from the background of something else. I plopped the dark brown on the gray and it became a mountain on an over cast day.

I added a little of this and that and tacked it down and I like it. Tom says it looks Japanese. I decided to stitch a white circle where the gray is smeary. Like the way the sun shines through over cast sometimes. Then I became obsessed with stitching lines through the sky to extend it
out a bit. I miss the purity of it when it was only fabric, but the
stitching is ok in it's way.

It reminds me of the mountains in Iceland. Dark brown mountains stick up out of a bare landscape. I used to read a blog, the The Iceland Weather Report . She talks a lot about politics, and it was interesting during the year of the Big Crash since their government went bankrupt. What I enjoyed the most about it was her travel photos. She introduced us to these amazing landscapes with very little in them. There's moss where you would expect grass. There are volcanos, glaciers, and waterfalls cut through fantastically shaped volcanic rock. It was so interesting I toured Iceland on Google Earth, which is highly recommended. I stole this photo from Google Earth, it was taken by T Blackburn. Wonderful shot, give him credit please.

Something about that place has haunted me ever since, and I'd love to take a road trip there some time. It has a bit of the mesas of New Mexico and Arizona mixed with the cinder cones near Kelso California. It's familiar and strange at the same time.

The mountain piece has changed since I took those pictures yesterday. I'm not sure what I'm going to do to it next, and there are design things that need to be resolved. That's the best fun, fixing the things that are messed up. Don't you love a challenge?

06/22/2013

I did a little sewing this morning on the black squares. I'd been sewing bits of colored scraps together to put in the middle of the black squares.

I thought about making them different sizes and shapes, maybe not making them perfectly square, not centering them. Then after I'd sewn down the one in the lower right hand corner I think my ideas were all wrong. Or maybe it's too small and I should add a slice on the side and see how it goes. Perhaps they should be trimmed to be more square? It looks like a bad accident. As usual, the colors aren't like this in real life. the yellows are brighter, and the green and blue are a lot less intense. I added the periwinkle to contrast with the yellow. It's got the tiniest bit of purple which does the trick nicely. It doesn't show in the photo at all, it looks like a bright blue.

The teacher was talking about windows. All kinds of thoughts about them. This could be windows, but maybe in reverse. You can see out through the frames and the panes are opaque. Or maybe there are windows in the windows. This is verging on science fiction. Yes, it's science fiction, otherwise it would be way too weird.

Here's a photo of a cross section of tree bark. It was taken in the place where the big rocks are. I sat on fallen tree for a while watching the big black mountain ants doing their work. Then I noticed the nice pattern of this tree bark.

I walked around and saw one of those mysterious messages the insects chew into dead wood. I used to imagine that space aliens had left them as messages for the other aliens. If you can't read them they aren't for you.

12/29/2012

We went to the L.A. County Arboretum with an old friend the day after the solstice. It was a lovely second day of winter. The trees are still full of bright leaves, even though it's December. The fall color seems to be lasting longer this year, but who knows. I find that our memory of weather and seasons is pretty vague.

These ginkgo trees are such a bright yellow I faint a little every time I see one. This one had long triangular leaves, different from the usual kind we see in the neighborhood.

The pond where they filmed the Tarzan movies was shrouded in fall leaves too. It was murky and mysterious on the banks, and sunny out on the water. I love the light this time of year.

The beautiful Queen Anne Cottage that they used for Fantasy Island is under repairs so we weren't able to get near it. I didn't take any pictures because it was covered with scaffolding and tarps. It will be bright and shiny when they get done. We spent some time sitting on benches contemplating the day. I want to get back there sometime soon.

We went to see the Hobbit on Christmas Eve. Very fun movie, but where did all that extra plot, the epic battle scenes and special effects come from? Hmm? The book had a childish charm that the the movie ignores, but I enjoyed it a lot anyway. This is Tolkien's illustration of Rivendell. It's nice to see his original vision.

I'm wishing you all a Happy New Year. I hope it brings you what you love and not too much of things that aren't good for you.

10/28/2012

A praying mantis came in our house the other night. It was large and light brown. It just stood in the living room not doing much of anything. Tom caught it and took it out and let it go. It turns out the neighbors had it as a pet. They had three of them. They let them all go, but this one didn't want to leave and is hanging around. When it came in it probably thought it was coming home. Tom says "Ah ha, that's why it was so calm when it came in and wasn't afraid of us." I'm glad someone wasn't afraid. They're neat when they're outside, but I don't want them in my house hiding under the furniture and running up our legs. Yikes. Besides it looks like it could hurt the cats almost as much as they hurt it.

We saw the neighbors out with their butterfly nets and flashlights the other night. They go out and literally beat the bushes looking for insects to feed it. It's against my religion to feed live creatures to other living creatures, but I think I know why the insect wanted to go back to his safe house. No cats, crows or dogs, and lots of free bugs.

08/26/2012

Sorry I haven't been here much. I'm working more hours these days and
come home every evening slightly stunned. We're getting ready for fall semester and I barely have time to catch my breath at home before I have to go back in the next day and start shoveling work again for dear life. I'm very glad to have more time to do it all, I can just about keep up. Shhh, don't tell them or they'll give me more.

We were in the mountains for a few days.
Very nice weather up there, only in the high 70's. I was so glad to get
away from more 100 degree weather. There was rain, and thunderstorms
most afternoons. We usually like to go hiking, but the top of a
mountain with tall trees isn't a good place to be in a thunderstorm. Then I thought we should go check out the lake, but that's as bad as a
mountain for attracting lightening. We did get out and play most days,
we also got to hang out and do nothing, which was what we needed the
most. We spent many hours sitting on the deck watching the clouds form and dissolve again. The cloud show was spectacular.

The apples are on the tree in the back of the cabin. Most years the blossoms freeze and die. Every once in a while they don't freeze and there are apples. Tom's sister pinched back the blossoms or baby apples so that they aren't crowded on the tree. We're looking forward to going back in the fall when they're ripe and bringing a bunch home.

Tom turned 60 last Sunday. He did almost nothing for his birthday and enjoyed it a lot.

I have more pictures, but haven't gotten to them yet. Too much work, and not enough brains. Someday...

07/25/2012

It's almost the end of July and the crepe myrtle trees are blooming loudly. There are big pink trees everywhere I go. It's really exciting. I change my route this time of year to drive on streets where there are a lot of them.

Another thing going on this time of year are the dragonflies. You'd think they'd be hovering around damp places. Not that we have that many damp places in Lost Angeles. Instead they hover around intersections and buzz over the cars that are stopped at the light. I can't imagine what they're doing. Are there tiny bugs on our cars? They always seem to dodge out of the way when the light changes, then settle down on the next batch that stops at the light. I don't know what they're eating, but they're welcome to it.